Catholic attitudes to religious experience

• Most religious people believe religious experience is a proof for

  God’s existence because:

  ● for people to have a numinous experience, something must be causing

  the experience and the only possible cause is God

  ● if a miracle happens, then all the laws of science have been broken and

  the only explanation for such an event is God, so God must exist

  ● if a person has such a vivid religious experience that it converts them

  and totally changes their life, it must have been caused by God

  ● if a person prays and their prayer is answered, then God must have

  answered the prayer and so God must exist.
• Non-religious views on why religious experiences do not prove God's existence


  • If numinous experiences came from God, everyone in the same place and at same time would have to have the same experience, but they don't
  • All miracles can be explained - Jesus may not have been dead when he was taken down from the cross
  • Conversion experiences are only in that person's head and cannot prove anything to anyone else
  • There are more unanswered prayers than answered ones, so the unanswered prayers prove God does not exist
  • Followers of all religions claim to have religious experiences so they cannot prove the truth of any one religion
• Conversion is used to describe an experience of God which is so great

  that the person wants to change his or her life or religion and commit

  themselves to God in a special way. Conversion experiences make

  people believe in God because they feel that God is calling them to do

  something for him.
• The numinous is a feeling of the presence of God. When people are in

  a religious building, in a beautiful place or looking up at the stars on a

  clear night, they may be filled with the awareness that there is something

  greater than them, which they feel to be God. It is often described as an

  experience of the transcendent. Such a feeling is likely to lead them to

  believe in God.
• Prayer is a religious experience when the person praying feels that God

  is listening to the prayer. Also an answered prayer (for example, when

  someone prays for a sick loved one to recover and they do) will lead to

  belief in God.
• Catholics disagree with these ideas because they believe everyone

  has a spiritual sense, they just interpret their experiences differently from religious people. They claim that these experiences prove God exists but cannot prove the truth of any particular religion.
• The Catechism claims

  that religious experiences

  happen because people are

  created by God and for God,

  and God is always trying to

  contact humans.